


in the dark

by orphan_account



Series: UFUT [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Petstuck, dave/cronus moirallegiance, ufutverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:44:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>UFUTverse pale fluff. Dave has nightmares. Cronus bioluminesces. Neither of them are very good at talking about shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the [UFUT](http://archiveofourown.org/works/477092?view_full_work=true)verse, a petstuck AU featuring the Strider brothers and their young adopted trolls Karkat and Sollux as well as a recently arrived teenage Cronus. It's set at some time post UFUT chapter 27, and will likely not make sense unless you have read the original story. It contains Dave and Cronus in a pale relationship. If this wigs you the fuck out, I don't blame you one tiny little bit, and I also suggest you don't read further.
> 
> Illustrated by [splickedylit](http://splickedylit.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.

You wake gasping, goosepimples standing out almost painfully stark on your arms and legs; there isn't any air and what the _fuck is that_ something right next to you in the dark is _glowing_ there is a blur of moving blotches of light and someone is touching your face and you yelp and flail at whatever's invaded your room.

"Easy, chief," says a familiar voice. As you blink and your contacts lubricate themselves (and you wake the rest of the way up) you can make out the fact that Cronus Ampora has faint purple lines of light going up and down his arms, neck, and earfins. It looks like...fuck, it looks like one of those alien butterfly thingies in _The Abyss_. "--Easy."

"What the fuck. You're glowing. Also don't call me chief." Your breathing's coming easier now, but your chest is still tight. You've been having allergies or maybe the beginnings of a cold for a couple days, and now your throat's started to tickle. Fucking great. 

"Cool, Slick," says Ampora, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, I bioluminesce. It's a thing. A seatroll thing. You were havin a nightmare."

"I was not. I don't have nightmares." You push yourself upright, reaching for the lamp, but the idea of bright actinic light somehow doesn't appeal. He puts his hand to your cheek and it's wonderfully cool, even if he does smell like whatever that shit is he uses on his hair. 

"Coulda fooled me, you were all wrigglin around an gaspin an carryin on. What was it?"

You close your eyes again. "Karkat. He was lost in the rain, I couldn't find him. There was just the box. I could hear him crying but I couldn't find him."

Ampora hisses in air between his teeth, doing that weird flutter-sigh thing with his gills you know means the same thing in Troll. "He's fine. He's sleepin, prolly dreamin little dreams a tellin the entire universe what to do in a high-pitched squeaky little voice." 

You know that, of course you know that, but god, it's good to hear anyway. "Mmh. Yeah. I've had it before. Usually I find him."

He pushes damp hair off your forehead. "Think you're runnin a temperature, sport. Want me to go get you some aspirin?"

"I'm fine, I..." Ugh. "Yeah, I feel like shit. Would you?"

He just gets up and goes, and you push at your pillows irritably and try to find a comfortable spot. You've just got the cold everyone had last week, you'll be okay in the morning, it was _just a dream_ , for fuck's sake, nothing more than a dream, and you need to quit being a dumbass about Karkat, his recent weirdness notwithstanding. 

The dream had been particularly vivid this time, though. The alleyway, the sodden cardboard box with its Magic Marker legend almost washed away by a day and a night's solid rain; little dents on the rim where he'd clutched at it, shivering. A tiny stain of red from a bitten lip or maybe a nosebleed. 

You can hear him crying and it cuts right through you, cold and horrible and you can't tell where it's coming from, which is unlike you, it's so unlike you, but the rain muffles some of the sounds and bounces others and everything's coming through a sort of audio fog, and he sounds so cold and so frightened and you are all alone and you _can't find him_ and--

"Hey," Ampora says as you jerk with surprise. "It's just me. Wow, you really are freaked out, huh?"

It's kind of pointless to deny this. "Yeah, I guess. --Thanks." He's holding out a couple pills, and...fuck, he got you juice. He went and got you juice. Goddamn. "Thanks," you say again.

"'S cool." He watches as you drink half the glass, thirsty, loving the clean sharp sweetness of apples against the back of your throat. You're watching him, too, staring at those little blotches of light. They're like freckles, if freckles came in lines and glowed in the dark. "What?"

You realize you're staring. "Uh. Just. Never seen you glow before, dude."

"Yeah, it's kinda like havin a whole bunch a blacklight tattoos is the way I figure. Only I don't need a blacklight." He holds out an arm, twists it; the purple points of light move and ripple. They're brightest along the cords of his neck and along the spines of his earfins, which are pretty impressively lambent. They throw weird shadows across his face. 

"They're pretty," you say. He flushes, and for a moment the glow dims, then brightens again. "No, shit, pretty isn't what I mean to say. They're...weird and awesome. Amazing."

"They ain't." But the bright points of his earfins rise.

"They are too, and you know it." You put the glass back on the table, feeling a little better, but not much. You're pretty sure as soon as you fall back asleep you'll hear Karkat crying in the rain. Your goddamn pillows are too hot and you can't find a cool spot on them. _You're_ too hot. That's stupid. That's...

Goddamnit. "...Cronus?"

"Hmm?" He's just sitting there, a shadow limned in purple. 

"Would it be super weird if, uh, you got in under the covers with me?" 

Silence, and then a little raspy chuckle. "Yeah, but you already pointed out multiple times in our acquaintance how I'm pretty much weird all the friggin time. Are you sure?"

"Please?"

The little word drops into the dark air of your bedroom and everything changes, subtly. He nods, a dip of glowing fins, and then he's slipping under the covers behind you and you settle against him and oh, hell, that's awesome. Even through his silk pyjamas and your boxers and T-shirt he's wonderfully, mercifully cool. "--Dave?" he says. 

"Dude." You will probably....not actually regret this at all. "You are a whole-body cool spot on the pillow."

He huffs laughter from his gills, little soft puffs against your side. You've held him when he needed it; and you've run out of reasons to deny you need it just as much. "Well, shit. I found my meanin in life, Dave Strider. I am a troll fulfilled. Gonna straighten up an fly right an join the fuckin Troll Scouts."

"Just don't go away," you say, already sleepy with that solid coolness to rest against. Maybe that's enough to make the dream back off. 

~

Two weeks later a constellation of purple dots shakes you out of a sound sleep and you stare up at Cronus Ampora in the darkness. "What the hell, dude?"

"I'm cold," he says, pitifully. "Can I get in with you?"

"You're a seatroll, you're s'posed to be cold," you grumble, already scooting over and folding back the covers. "No stabbing me with your horns."

"I promise." He wraps around you, just as well-behaved and polite a...person in your bed with you...as you could want. 

"G'night," you say. He nuzzles your shoulder with a contented little sigh. You manage not to shriek when icy-cold trollfeet find your legs. 

But only just.


End file.
